


There to Catch You

by jessie_pie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Childhood Memories, Dean's A Good Older Brother, Fluff, Gen, John Before and After Mary's Death, Memories, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:36:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessie_pie/pseuds/jessie_pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One blazing hot summer day, the Winchesters find a lake. They had also found a lake many years ago…</p>
<p>Set in approximately Season Two, back when angst wasn’t so angsty.<br/>Contains implied references to past character death, alcohol, some dubious parenting by John, and non-explicit Dean- doesn’t-waste-space-in-the-Impala-packing-swim-trunks nudity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There to Catch You

**Author's Note:**

> Supernatural does not belong to the author of this fic, and thanks to Osito for beta-ing.

There were lots of cool things about driving a ’67 Chevrolet Impala, but the lack of an air conditioner definitely wasn’t one of them. Opening the windows only helped so much when the air outside was oven-hot and bone dry. Dean’s t-shirt was plastered to his chest. Sam’s hair formed sweaty cowlicks and the seams of his jeans, damp from his own perspiration, rubbed uncomfortably against his skin.   
“Hey, look.” Dean pointed toward the right hand side of the road. “A lake.”  
Sam had been somewhat uncomfortable about lakes since they had encountered the vengeful ghost of a drowned child, but he was so hot he wasn’t sure even a floating body would have deterred him very much.   
“You’re staring like it’s Miami Beach during spring break,” Dean commented as he pulled onto the wide shoulder. Gravel crunched when he stepped out, and cicadas droned in the bushes across the road. Bugs. Another ordinary sound that no longer seemed entirely innocent.   
Sam opened his door and groaned as the wall of hot air struck him. He had been wrong; the motion of the air through the car had cooled it a bit.  
“It’s summer vacation, Sammy. Come on!” Dean was peeling off his clothes and placing them on top of the Impala. Sam rolled his eyes and grinned to himself as his sibling streaked past him and cannon-balled into the water. _Older brother? Sure. But no one said anything about more mature…_   
“The water’s great,” Dean yelled, already up to his chest. “What’re you waiting for?”   
Sam kicked off the sweat-filled canoes formerly known as his shoes and rolled up his pant legs. The heat was too oppressive for him to manage anything more than a slow walk. He strolled to the edge of the dilapidated fishing dock and sat down, allowing his legs to dangle into the water.   
“You’re not coming in?” Dean paddled over to him, his body a tan blur beneath the clear water. “Haven’t forgot how to swim, have you?”   
Sam shook his head. The air was noticeably cooler above the lake. “Like I could forget that.”   
Dean chuckled and reversed directions to swim by his brother again. “Yeah, I think your shorts were wet before you hit the water.”   
“I was four,” Sam said with all the affronted dignity he could muster.  
“You had good lungs for a four-year old, but you stopped screaming before you got water up your nose.”  
Sam remembered that.  
 _John, his arms full of struggling toddler, marched to the end of the dock.  
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna! Put me do-o-own!” young Sam howled.   
Paddling in place off of the edge of the dock, eight year-old Dean shook his head. His dad was strong, but if Sam kept squirming like that, he was going to get a quicker introduction to the lake than John had intended.   
“Lemme go-o! No-o-o! I don’t wanna!” Sam arched his back and pummeled his tiny fists. John held his youngest son away from his body, protecting himself from the futile attacks.   
Dean grimaced. Sam was going to scare the fish out of the lake for a year if he kept this up.   
“Hey, Sammy,” the older brother called.   
“What?” The child’s voice was sulky, and his cheeks were tear-stained, but at least he was no longer beating at the hands holding him over the water. Kid could really think stuff through sometimes.   
“It’s gonna be ok.” Dean smiled up at his baby brother. “It’s gonna be just fine.”   
John frowned at his oldest son. _ Stop stalling, let’s get on with it. _  
Dean continued regardless. “I’m here to catch you, see?”  
Sam’s eyes were wide and locked onto Dean’s. He nodded.   
John tossed Sam high into the air as though he weighed no more than a baseball. He reached the top of his trajectory and came down. His eyes never left his brother’s. _  
“You know,” Sam dragged his hand through the water, splashing Dean with a good-sized wave. “I thought you were some kind of superhero to have survived being tossed into some lake all by yourself.”   
Dean slapped his palm across the water, utterly drenching Sam. He didn’t mind. It felt good. “You haven’t gotten much smarter since you were four, have you?”   
“What? Why?”   
“Dad didn’t just pitch me off a dock all by myself, Sam.” _  
Descending, hard and fast, toward the water, tiny limbs flailing madly, but not screaming, not screaming because his brother’s calm green eyes were locked on him, and screaming would embarrass his brother.  
Breaking the surface, images broken into shattered fractals, still going down, kicking frantically, and two skinny arms, distorted into wavy noodles by the water, reaching towards him and picking him up, supporting him under the chest and belly, guiding him upwards while he kicked toward the surface. _  
“Do you really think Mom would have let him get away with that?” Dean swam a little past the width of the dock and turned in the water so his back was towards his brother. He kept his voice deliberately casual. There was no reason for Sam to know how it had been for him. _  
His mother, waist deep in the water, held her hands out towards him. Her smile told him this was just another game, like when she turned the bubble bath into a silly crown. His father swung him back and forth, slowly at first, building a rhythm.  
“Are you ready, Dean? You’re going to be a flying fish!”   
“A flyin’ fish?” he asked, confused.   
“Yep! You’re going to fly, and then you’re going to swim.”   
Dean grinned at the prospect. His father swung him in wider arcs now, higher.   
“A-one, and a-two, and a- Hail Mary! And a-three!”   
Dean soared out over the water, arms spread wide, falling towards his mother, a triumphant flying fish. _  
“Oh.” Sam sat still and silent for a long moment, the water still dripping off of his hair.   
“She was there to catch me, like I was for you.” __  
The way I’ll always be for you.  
Dean was treading water now with his back towards Sam. His voice was uncharacteristically rough. “It’s what family does, right?”   
The silence lingered between them, broken only by the muted buzzing of the cicadas.   
Dean turned in the water so that he was lying on his back- he was still a better swimmer than Sam- and spat a fountain of water in imitation of a whale.   
“You know what would go great with this lake water?”   
“What?”   
“Beer.” 


End file.
